feb08c.indd I n t e r n e t R e v i e w s Joni R. Roberts and Carol A. Drost CYFERnet: Children, Youth and Families Education and Research Network. Access: http://cyfernet.org. A national network of land grant univer­ sity faculty and county extension educators, CYFERnet supports community­based educa­ tional programs for children, youth, parents, and families. With an online presence since 1992, this well–connected organization brings together professional reports, programs, stud­ ies, tips, and even games on a wide variety of topics. College students, educators, and researchers will discover many pockets of useful information here. CYFERnet.org does emphasize its primary role as a community educator. The bright, active, visually attractive layout invites teens and younger children, as well as parents and teachers, to explore the site. “Hot Topic,” “Announcements,” and “New CY­ FERnet Resources” seem to shine in yellow on the right, while tidier clearly designated cat­ egories await on the left. Every path leads to some kind of information, justifying the site’s slogan: “Practical Research­based Information from the Nation’s Leading Universities.” Organized categories on the left include “Early Childhood,” “School Age,” “Teens,” “Parent/Family,” and “Community.” Choosing any one displays that program’s page, with subdivisions eventually leading to anything from short how­to articles to full research studies. Teen pregnancy, family confl ict, adult development, after school programs, and intergenerational parenting are just a few topics. Featured resources for each category show up at appropriate points on the right sidebar, obscured at first by the extent of content in the middle. CYFERnet is clearly a large­scale, pro­ Joni R. Roberts is associate university librarian for public ser vices and collec tion development at Willamette University, e-mail: jroberts@willamette. edu, and Carol A. Drost is associate university librarian for technical services at Willamette University, e-mail: cdrost@willamette.edu fessional, noncommercial network as any amount of drilling down reveals. Fortunately, competent Web design provides logical path­ ways to research, preventing one from being overwhelmed. In addition, an ever­present Google search box always beckons for an alternative approach or quick escape. In gen­ eral, the trip is worth it. Still, the sheer variety of resources available at CYFERnet means that many of the sources retrieved will not always be relevant to a particular researcher. In the end, this site serves the community, but has a lot to offer the practitioner and scholar, as well. Students majoring in educa­ tion fields will find useful tips for creating appropriate programs and curricula along with relevant research. Others interested in research on the health and well­being of chil­ dren, families, and communities are bound to find something different and valuable here.—Barbara Valentine, Linfi eld College, bvalen@linfi eld.edu Moving Here: 200 Years of Migration in England. Access: http://www.movinghere. org.uk/. Americans who hear the phrase “British migration” probably recall the settlement of the North American colonies in the 17th and 18th centuries. To Britons, however, migra­ tion fi rst calls to mind the tremendous infl ux of foreigners into Britain, particularly from the Commonwealth countries. Moving Here “explores, records and illustrates why people came to England over the last 200 years and what their experiences were and continue to be.” A joint project of 30 museums, archives, and libraries organized by the British National Archives, the project is targeted at individuals and students in England who want to learn more about their heritage. It contains 200,000 items, mostly primary source materials. The site is well organized, with sections devoted to images, oral histories, the history of mass migration, and genealogical research. An online catalog allows searching the col­ C&RL News February 2008 106 http://www.movinghere mailto:cdrost@willamette.edu http:CYFERnet.org http:http://cyfernet.org lections either as a whole or within these categories. A special section for educators features extensive lesson plans and online student activities. Interactive exercises teach about immigrant life in Victorian England, migration in post­war Britain, and the infl u­ ence of the Holocaust. A particularly useful tool for people in Britain who want to learn about their family history is the “Tracing your Roots” section. This interactive tutorial provides useful guidelines for researching within four major immigrant groups: Irish, South Asian, Carib­ bean, and Jewish. While mainly intended for people within the United Kingdom, much of the mate­ rial will be useful for Americans of British heritage. The galleries include representative im­ ages and sound files from the archives, with more available through the online catalog. Only a couple of bad links were found. The images are smaller than those found on some archival sites, but were perfectly usable. Im­ ages may be e­mailed as online postcards, which is an uncommon feature. The maintainers encourage immigrants to contribute their own stories. Recent additions document the experi­ ences of Chinese from Hong Kong, who ar­ rived in Britain in the mid­20th century and acculturated in spite of challenges posed by language barriers and occasional prejudice. The site will be useful to people research­ ing the history of ethnic groups in England, families exploring their British roots, and scholars interested in ethnography and historical migration patterns.—Mark A. Stoffan, University of Arkansas-Little Rock, mastoffan@ualr.edu USINFO. Access: http://usinfo.state.gov/. The USINFO Web site is produced by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Inter­ national Information Programs (IIP), which “engages international audiences on issues of foreign policy, society, and values to help create an environment receptive to U.S. inter­ national interests.” In other words, USINFO, like Voice of America and Radio Liberty, is a medium for propaganda. Its purpose is to promote “American values” and pro­U.S. sen­ timent abroad; however, the format has been updated to reach an Internet audience. Since USINFO’s target audience is citizens from other nations, the site is available in seven languages: Arabic, Chinese (Manda­ rin), English, French, Persian, Russian, and Spanish. IIP has taken advantage of new technologies by giving users the option to subscribe to daily or weekly updates, RSS news feeds, podcasts, or a mobile edition that can be sent to PDAs and cell phones. The homepage also has a link to video clips, including the four­and­a­half­minute long “I Am America,” described as presenting “iconic scenes of America and its people.” There also are videos about the 2008 Presidential elec­ tions and the Middle East peace process. The “Topics” page links to “news and information” about U.S. policies regarding “International Security,” “Trade and Econom­ ics,” “Global Issues” (environment, health, humanitarian assistance, and immigration), “Democracy,” “Human Rights,” and “U.S. Life, Culture, and History.” Users can also browse the site by geo­ graphic region. This section includes infor­ mation about U.S. policy and interactions with different nations or regions. All of these pages present U.S. policies and efforts in only the most positive light. However, there are links to other Web sites, reports, and articles throughout. Under “Resource Tools,” there are links to an “International Events Calendar” (“a sched­ ule of events worldwide that may include participation by U.S. offi cials”), “Information USA,” and information about consulates and obtaining visas. The “Identifying Misinforma­ tion” page “sheds light on misinformation, disinformation, hoaxes and other false reports about the U.S. government.” The “Products” (continues on page 114) February 2008 107 C&RL News http:http://usinfo.state.gov mailto:mastoffan@ualr.edu Francoise Puniello is now associate university librarian for facilities planning and management at Rutgers University. Greta Reisel Browning has been appointed reference archivist/librarian for special collec­ tions at Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina. David Reynolds has been appointed man­ ager of scholarly digital initiatives at the Johns Hopkins Sheridan Libraries. Scott Rice is now e­learning librarian at Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina. Nicole Robinson has joined Muskigum College in New Concord, Ohio, as reference librarian. Jeanine Scaramozzino has been appointed research librarian for Math, Physics, and Astron­ omy at the University of California­Irvine. Jill Sexton is now information infrastructure architect in the Library Systems Office at the University of North Carolina­Chapel Hill. Lisa Sibert has been appointed electronic resources acquisitions librarian at the University of California­Irvine. Daniel J. Slive is now reference and special projects librarian in the Mandeville Special Col­ lections Library of the University of California­ San Diego Libraries. David Stern has been appointed associate university librarian for scholarly resources at Brown University Library. Julia Stewart has been appointed social sci­ ences reference librarian (Government Informa­ tion, Political Science, Business and Economics) for the Central University Libraries at Southern Methodist University. Matt Sumner is now geospatial data services librarian at North Carolina State University. Whitney Townsend has been appointed liaison services librarian at the University of Michigan. Retirements Patricia Meckstroth, humanities librarian since 2000, retired in December 2007 from Il­ linois State University Milner Library after 31 years of service. She worked as in the General College Library before serving as acting direc­ tor of general education for Illinois State. Pearline Palmer Harmon, library coordina­ tor for the LRC­Norfolk Campus of Tidewater Community College since January 2001, has re­ tired. She has been active in the Virginia Library Association serving as forum chair of Region III and the Ethnic Forum, and as a member of the awards committee and convention and confer­ ence committees; she was also a member of ACRL. Harmon was a librarian for more than 40 years, serving as a school librarian and the department head of reference and circulation at Norfolk State University. W. Walter Wicker, dean of library services at Louisiana Tech University, retired on Decem­ ber 31, 2007, after 14 years of service at the university and more than 50 years of service to the profession. Wicker also served as president of the Louisiana Library Association. D e a t h s Wayne Morris Burton, 58, head of access services at the Old Dominion University Li­ braries in Norfolk, Virginia, died December 1, 2007. Burton was interlibrary loan librarian at Old Dominion from 1978 to 2002, when he was appointed head of access services. He was selected as Old Dominion Librarian of the Year in 2003. (“Reviews” continued from page 107) page offers electronic journals, a photo gal­ lery, and Webchat and Webcast stations. Unless a user is specifically interested in government propaganda, this reviewer would direct users to the State Department’s home site, where much of the same information is available without the hyperbole.—Gerri Foudy, University of Maryland-College Park, gfoudy@umd.edu C&RL News February 2008 114 mailto:gfoudy@umd.edu